r/Payroll

i'm in HR leadership at a mid size company and i've been seeing this shift. the top CHROs aren't buried in quarterly reports or waiting on analysts anymore. They have AI analytics that spit out HR data insights instantly, spot workforce analytics risks before they blow up, even tie compensation management software right to business results.

One's still stuck on excel and queues are getting left behind fast. Feels like the role is changing quicker than we can keep up.

I’ve been working in payroll at a community college in California for about 5 years now, and I genuinely can’t tell anymore if I dislike payroll itself or if our processes are just extremely outdated.

We use Ellucian Banner as our ERP, but almost everything around it is hyper manual.

For example, all 300+ classified employees still submit paper timesheets every month. I have to physically gather them, print supporting docs, alphabetize everything, code them manually, and enter data into spreadsheets so it can eventually be uploaded into Banner.

Beyond that, basically everything else involves:

• pulling reports manually
• exporting data into Excel
• manipulating spreadsheets
• reconciling things by hand
• building workaround processes because systems don’t talk to each other

There’s very little automation.

Even small process improvements feel impossible because IT doesn’t view payroll workflow modernization as a high priority.

This is my first payroll job, so I honestly have no baseline for comparison.

Is this just how payroll is everywhere? Or is this unusually outdated/process-heavy?

Curious to hear from people in payroll, HRIS, finance, or higher ed specifically.

Our company currently has pay rates with two-digit decimals. It is being proposed by one of our financial directors that we change to four digits.

I am on board with this idea for rounding and accuracy purposes but wondering if I am missing anything that could be a negative. Is there any reason we should consider staying with two digits?

I changed my direct deposit bank account on Friday and my pay for 5/21 was issued as a mailed check. I will be traveling for a while so wouldn’t be able to receive it. Is it possible for the mailed check to be changed to DD or pickup. Just asking before I reach out to payroll

Been in HR for 5 years with currently managing a team of around 45 people at a mid size logistics company in Atlanta. Payroll is not technically my lane because that sits with finance but I end up close to it because of headcount changes, onboarding timing and the occasional conversation when someone's direct deposit doesnt land right. Last week I was at a lunch with a few HR people from other companies and someone mentioned that they had been funding payroll through a credit card for about a year and earning points on it. I was acting like I was familiar with what they said but I was only familiar with sending ACH or wire.

There are companies I read about which you can make payments for your big business payments such as payroll with your credit cards even if your recipients only accept bank transfers. I brought it up to the CFO the next day and she hadnt heard about it either.

Does anyone have any previous experience with this sort of service? Wanna know how reliable and secure they can be

Hi everyone,

My fiancée recently completed a Human Resource Management diploma and is considering taking payroll courses through the National Payroll Institute, possibly working toward the Payroll Compliance Professional designation.

We’re trying to get a better sense of whether combining HR with payroll is a good career move in Canada. She’s interested in HR, but payroll also seems like it could be a useful skill to add, especially for roles that involve employee records, benefits, compensation, onboarding, and general HR administration.

I’m wondering how payroll is as a career overall, and whether having both an HR background and payroll training would make someone more employable. I’ve seen roles like HR/payroll coordinator, payroll administrator, HR assistant, benefits coordinator, and people operations assistant, but I’m not sure whether companies usually combine these duties or expect someone to specialize in one area.

For anyone working in HR, payroll, or a related field, I’d appreciate hearing your thoughts on whether this is a smart path to pursue. Is payroll a stable career with decent growth, or is it more limited compared to HR? Would adding payroll help someone build a stronger HR career, or could it pull them more toward accounting/admin work instead?

Any advice, personal experiences, or things to watch out for would be really helpful.

Thanks!

My business has been small enough that I could handle everything myself up until now, but we’re finally getting to the point where I need to hire a couple people. One will probably stay local, but the others may work remotely from different states.

I started looking into payroll software and honestly didn’t realize how complicated multi state payroll could get with taxes, registrations, and compliance. Gusto keeps coming up, but then I’ll read reviews saying support falls apart once issues happen, so now I’m stuck overthinking every option.

For anyone running a small remote team, what payroll service actually worked well for you once you started hiring across states?

I’m curious what payroll people consider the worst pay setups.

Not regular hourly/salary — more like tips, commissions, different rates by role or location, bonuses, manager spreadsheets, weird one-off rules, etc.

What industry was it in, and what made it such a pain?

Was the hard part getting the data, calculating the pay, checking it before submission, or explaining it when someone asked why their check looked wrong?

I recently started a new role where I will be responsible for maintaining our HRIS and processing payroll.

I have many years of experience with the HRIS system in use and I am not concerned with the system configuration and actual process to process payroll and timesheets, etc.

However, while I have always worked in payroll adjacent roles in HR and have had varying degrees of responsibility in the process, I have never been the one to process and be responsible for the accuracy and submission of payroll. My boss knows this and is fully supportive of providing internal training.

However, I am interested in course recommendations and/or resources to help support multi-state payroll processing as well as Canadian payroll (inclusive of Quebec) to help support my learning journey.

Any and all recommendations are appreciated. TIA!

I’m curious what kinds of pay setups make payroll the hardest in the real world.

Not just regular hourly/salary, but the setups where the calculation or review gets messy before payroll can be submitted.

Examples I’m thinking of:

- tips or tip pools
- commissions
- service-based pay
- per-job or per-booking pay
- multiple locations with different rules
- role-based rates
- bonuses/spiffs
- cash/card tip reconciliation
- payroll data coming from multiple systems
- managers submitting inconsistent reports
- one person having all the “tribal knowledge”

For people who run payroll or support payroll teams: what types of businesses or pay structures create the most manual work, review, or risk?

And what part usually causes the problem — collecting the data, calculating the pay, reviewing exceptions, explaining the numbers, or getting it into the payroll system?

I work as an office assistant for a mobile grooming company. I was only supposed to do phones and scheduling but the manager who does payroll is leaving. Now it’s my new responsibility. I just left my only training and I just want to cry because I left stress rather than confident .

I understand the payroll stuff. The hours, commission, and overtime makes sense for me. The part that is confusing me is verifying gross payments for the groomers. I need it for the commission. The numbers in square don’t match the ones in my excel sheet and it’s so frustrating.

I am getting all of the time cards tomorrow. It’s probably going to take me 1 hrs to do the actual payroll. But the verifying the payments will take me 5 hrs minimum.

I am very stress. I don’t want to get laid off again but the only payroll I have ever done was salary. This company doesn’t use anything but excel to do payroll. I just feel an idiot about to be fired.

If anyone has any advice, please comment.

Recently I took over my families business, a deli. I have been apart of it for the last 15 years but have been the GM for the past five. Q1 2026 we changed to SCORP status for tax purposes and also I became the CEO. I was running payroll Manually and through bookkeepers for the last 5 years as the company has now grown to 15 employees.
I tried to use ADP payroll for my business starting Q1 2026, with the process starting end of 2025. According to ADP all our scorp filing weren’t complete and bank accounts weren’t converted fully so they didn’t want to touch anything until everything was complete.
I finally got everything in order, paid all payroll taxes to both the state of CA and the IRS to get us rolling for Q2.
ADP came back and told me my filings with the state and IRS do not match and that we had to rerun our numbers, which I and the accountants did. So I resent documents to ADP and found a discrepancy in terminology we used and our calculation process vs ADP when it came to calculating tips. Our numbers were off by less then $100 by ADPs calculations. IMO that’s pretty nominal seeing the IRS usually gives you some leeway, before doing an audit.
In the end I got an email saying that if we don’t correct errors they can’t move forward with us as a client, so on this case I just responded by telling them I no longer want your services since you guys are being so strict and I’m still doing payroll myself with our bookkeeper.
Has anyone experienced this much push back from ADP, or
another payroll company for that matter, for trying to be a client?

OK, I'm in a pickle..

I've recently accepted a short term position (through a third party company, let's call them Company T) in the payroll department of a new employer (company X). I've done some minor payroll assistance through my HR roll, but nothing too indepth. I've also recently earned my B.S. in HR & BA, so I have a good amount of theoretical knowledge.

I was supposed to complete an assessment through company T to determine if I had enough skill to be considered for the position, but the hiring manager at company X determined I was skilled enough based on what my company T recruiter told her. Who knows how embellished this was. I now start the position in one day and am freaking out that they'll see how inexperienced I am and let me go, potentially damaging my company T relationship, and making me as ineligible for rehire at company X (I've applied for another position with them and am fully qualified for that one, so the stakes are high on the line).

What can I do or where can I go online to learn a few crash course basics to get through day 1? There is almost zero training opportunities at Company X for this position as it is temporary and requires intermediate payroll experience. I didn't get to read the job description as my recruiter at company T just verbally explained some of the requirements and asked if I was interested in being considered.

I'll add that I've quite proficient in many software programs, learn new things very quickly, and thrive in transferable knowledge situations. I know that after the first few days I'll probably be very adept at the job, but I'm not sure I'll make it that far before they find out that I don't have the amount of experience that they're looking for. Again, I wouldn't have even applied for it if I'd been able to read the job description and knew the extent of what I was signing up for.

25 person company, currently on ADP Run paying $420/month. Tax filings have been wrong twice this year and getting someone on support takes forever. Looking to switch. US only for now but might hire in Canada next year. Reporting matters because our bookkeeper needs clean GL exports for month-end. Open to anything modern, not picky about the brand. What's actually working for you?

Using Gusto as an s-corp LLC I have 1 employee (myself). Gusto withheld my taxes and filed a 944 on my behalf to the IRS last January (~20k).

This last April I received a letter from the IRS saying I still owe that 20k which is crazy because it was filed, it’s left my bank account for months. I reached out to gusto and told them I received a letter saying I still owe that 20k and that it “didn’t match what I reported on my tax return” which makes no sense. I sent a report/letter to gusto and they said they fixed it but lo and behold I get a note on my door saying the IRS is trying to drop off certified mail.

I’m pissed. I do everything right, hire and accountant and a payroll company, pay everything on time and yet I still feel like I’m constantly in trouble. It’s so frustrating.

I tried to login to the IRS website and as always they can never verify my information. Try calling them but never get through to anyone. It’s a dumpster fire.

I have an employee who was overpaid last pay period.

His paycheque was calculated like this:

130.25 hours
(Should be 110.25)

Week 1: 40 hrs reg/time + 25.25 hrs OT.
Week 2: 20 hrs dbl/time + 25 hrs OT

Works out to 80hrs reg/time + 50.25 hrs OT.

Problem is, he was paid an extra 20 hours of overtime. (30 regular hours)

Payroll for this pay period was this:

110.5 hours.

Week 1: 40 hrs
Week 2: 40 hrs + .5 OT

(Claw back of 30 hours overpaid)

I believe that it should be:

Week 1: 40 hrs + 15 OT
Week 2: 10 hrs + 15.5 OT

Who’s right?

This isn’t the first payroll problem with this employee, and I can’t help but feeling it’s deliberately done by our payroll person and our CPA. (Incompetence is another thought, but it’s always the same employee with issues, so it’s beginning to look more targeted.)

I brought the question up and was told by the CPA to stop meddling in finance, and to stay in my lane.

Guidance would be helpful.

I’m on track to make 160k this year as a construction worker. If you count benefits it’s about 250k. I’m 32 and we are hoping for a $7 $7 $7 raise.

NO HRIS system

We just hired a new HR manager. They are telling me that HR is not involved with PTO or PTO requests. I’ve been running payroll, for multiple companies, for about 16 years and have never NOT had HR report sick and/or vacation hours directly to me prior to running payroll for the week.

Can you tell me how your company deals with these requests? Currently we are a small company without an HRIS system.